The Shout Victoria Cross sale.

The Victoria Cross, Military Cross and other medals awarded Captain Alfred John Shout of the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion were sold at auction by Bonhams & Goodman in Sydney on Monday, 24 July 2006. His elderly grandson was the seller. The hammer price was $1 million, a word record for a Victoria Cross group. The total price including buyer's premium and GST on the buyer's premium paid by media owner Kerry Stokes was $1,214,500. Of the nine Victoria Cross awards to Australians at Gallipoli, Shout's was the only one not held at the Australian War Memorial and Kerry Stokes bought the medal so that it could be displayed with the other eight medals. Shout was awarded one of seven Victoria Crosses for Lone Pine already having been awarded the Military Cross for gallantry two days after the landing at Anzac Cove. He was also mentioned in despatches and was the mostly highly decorated Australian soldier for Gallipoli. Shout was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 7 August 1881, and moved to Sydney in 1905. He died from wounds aboard a hospital ship on 11 August 1915 and was buried at sea. His name is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial.

The sale attracted much media interest before the sale and greater interest after the record amount paid. Some opinion pieces following the sale made interesting reading. There seem to be general ignorance that all Australian Victoria Crosses have been listed by name under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage legislation and cannot leave the country. There were the usual letters and commentaries that medals should not be sold. I do not think anyone making such comments realise that millions of medals have been issued to Australian forces since the first campaign medals were issued to the HMCS Victoria landing party for the New Zealand wars. It is not possible for public museums to collect, store or display more than a fraction of medals issued. For a whole lot of understandable reasons some families cannot or will not hold onto to these relics. So why not encourage other individuals to be the temporary custodians of a nation's relics. Most collectors are not into collecting for the money but for the commemoration, research and intellectual stimulation.

Although the Shout sale attracted a lot of media attention very little attention was paid to the next lot sold for $150,000 hammer price. Lot 1079 was the George Cross group of Lieutenant Commander George Gosse GC RANVR who was awarded the George Cross in May 1945 for 12 days searching for and removing mines at Bremen Harbour in Germany. In May 2003 the medals had been passed in at an auction held by Sotheby's Australia.

Wodonga Streets to be name for Victoria Cross recipients.

Eight streets in one of Wodonga's largest new housing estates, White Box Rise Estate, could be named after Victoria Cross recipients. This has been recommended by Wodonga council's place names committee, chaired by Cr John Mahony who said choosing the names of Victoria Cross recipients was appropriate given the development was land that had been owned and used for many years by the army. "The street names theme represented a wonderful connection between the long-term land usage and Australia's most honoured military heroes," Cr Mahony said.

The major thoroughfare into White Box Rise Estate would be called Victoria Cross Parade and would link at the eastern end of the development with Anzac Parade. One of the proposed names is Payne Street named for Warrant Officer Class 2 Keith Payne awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry in Vietnam on 24 May 1969. Street naming criteria usually precludes using the names of people still alive but it is believed an exception will be made for Payne, who lives in Queensland. Payne has spoken at Albury Anzac Day services and been involved with the

Bandiana Army Museum. The names of the other seven Victoria Cross recipients and action the led to their award are:

Axford Boulevard     Lance Corporal Thomas Leslie Axford, Hamel,
                     France, 4 July 1918
Burton Crescent      Corporal Alexander Stewart Burton, Lone Pine,
                     9 August 1915
Dartnell Crescent    Lieutenant William Thomas Dartnell, Maktau,
                     Kenya, 3 September 1915
Kelliher Avenue      Private Richard Kelliher, Nadzab, Papua New
                     Guinea, 13 September 1943
McDougall Street     Sergeant Stanley Robert McDougall, Demancourt,
                     France, 28 March 1918
O'Meara Street       Private Martin O'Meara, Pozieres, France, 9 to
                     12 August 1916
Partridge Way        Private Frank John Partridge, Bougainville, Papua
                     New Guinea, 24 July 1945

(Thanks to Nigel Home for the article "Streets to honour VC winners" by Nick Higgins, Border Mail, 7 July 2006.)

Umrao Singh 

More the 400 Victoria Crosses have been sold at public auction and an equal number have been donated to public institutions. Many of the other medals have remained with the recipient's family. The December 2005 issue of Sabretache reported the death of Havildar Umrao Singh, the last surviving Indian Victoria Cross recipient. In The Daily Telegraph (UK) on 6 July 2006 it was reported that family of Umrao Singh had been approached with an offer of six million rupees ($A180,000) but were rebuffed by the family. "It wouldn't make any difference if they offered ten million or twenty million," said his Mr Ved Prakash, a police constable with a wife and two children to support. "Nothing could be more shameful than giving away the symbol of my father's heroism for materialistic reasons." (Thanks to former ACT and now Dublin based corresponding member John Tremlett for the article. John also sent a two page article from the same paper dated 12 July on sportsmen who were awarded the Victoria Cross.)

Lord Ashcroft

For many years Lord Ashcroft, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, has been known to be a buyer of Victoria Crosses that have come up for sale or auction. There has been speculation as to how many medals he has acquired and the estimate suggested in the last few years has been that he owns more that one hundred Victoria Cross groups. The question of how many groups Lord Ashcroft owns has now been answered by Lord Ashcroft himself. In an article in The Spectator of 22 April 2006 Lord Ashcroft revealed he has had a long fascination with the Victoria Cross and that in 1986 he achieved a dream of buying his first VC group. He set up a trust to protect the collection which now owns 139 VC including three official replacements, one unissued specimen and an unofficial cross. The collection includes six fighter aces from the First World War and two of the 11 awards for Rorke's Drift. Lord Ashcroft announced that he is writing a book about the collection which is the largest and most valuable in the world. The book is due to be published later this year. (Thanks to George Franki for a copy of The Spectator article .)

Victoria Cross stamps for UK

Royal Mail will mark the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross with an issue of six stamps depicting: Charles Lucas; Noel Chavasse (VC and bar); Agansing Rai; Jack Cornwell; Albert Ball and Arthur Martin-Leake (VC and bar). Each stamp has a head and shoulders of the recipient, the Victoria Cross (and bar where applicable) and part of a newspaper account of the deed. There will also be a fully illustrated Prestige Stamp Book containing four stamp panes (sheets) as well as background information on the Victoria Cross and those who have received it. Release date is 21 September 2006. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vconstamps/)